| The Ducal Palace of San Cassiano is one of the numerous stately homes dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries to be found in this area known as the Terra d’Otranto.
It is likely that before this period a building like this would have had a different appearance, one that would have been closer to a fortification.
When the threat of invasion (which the South of Italy had been subject to in the 16th and 17th centuries) was removed these buildings lost their function and where once they had been fortified they became residential.
For this reason the castle of San Cassiano had its defensive structures removed at the beginning of the 18th century and an underground press built.
Most probably the construction of the original castle dates back to the times of the Guarini or Peschin families in the late 1400s and early 1500s.
In 1620 the castle was sold to Giovan Battista Lubelli of Sanarica, a town close by.
The Lubelli family held the fief of San Cassiano for a long time, until 1747; it was almost certainly they who commissioned the renovation of the building, carried out around 1720.
The last owners of the Palazzo were some members of the Frisari family, whose coat of arms appears on the internal façade and on the altar of the adjoining chapel.
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